1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronics. More specifically, the present invention relates to amplifiers.
2. Description of the Related Art
High dynamic range, low distortion, wideband amplifiers (or gain blocks) are used in a myriad of applications such as communications, high quality audio and video, electronic warfare, and radar systems. Many of these applications require amplifiers having very high performance (low distortion), wide bandwidth, and low power dissipation.
Modem communications systems, with the advent of high speed, low distortion analog to digital converters, tend to sample at IF (intermediate frequency) or RF (radio frequency). This allows all subsequent processing (demodulation, filtering, etc.) to be performed in the digital domain. As the ratio of information bandwidth to carrier frequency increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the linearity required. In particular, conventional amplifiers do not meet the linearity requirements for these types of applications.
The high power dissipation characteristics of conventional amplifiers require the circuit designer to increase system power or narrow the information bandwidth of each channel, thereby requiring more channels to be used, to meet systems linearity requirements.
Hence, there is a need in the art for an improved wideband amplifier offering lower distortion and lower power dissipation than prior art approaches.